Since the 1990s, historiography has shown a growing interest for transnational analyses, problems of transfers and the international circulation of knowledge. By contrast, history of education is often written from a national perspective (especially in France), whereas the second half of the 19th century in Western Europe is characterized by a singular logic which combines the transmission of national identity with the “adaptation” to a common school culture. The aim of this paper is to study the rise of the first forms of transnational organization in the field of technical and professional education. The emphasis will be put on International Congresses of Technical Education promoted and organized by the International Bureau of Technical Education during the interwar period. Between 1923 and 1938, eight congresses were held to reflect upon the stakes and the problems related to this precise form of schooling: teaching topics, public target, social and economic function as well as the coordination with the other degrees of teaching are at the core of cross-national polemics. These congresses may be seen as places where social demands are stated and developed by networks of specialists composed of professors, pedagogues, civil servants of governments and International Organizations. All these actors conceive differently school problems and seek to impose their own models. Their promoters ideally aspire to create a space for international agreement between representatives of national educational systems. They aim at coordinating the planning of urgent reforms afterwards implemented by national governments. With this regard, BIET actively collaborates with the International Labor Organization and the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in order to impose his expertise as an international norm and to find an effective link with the governments. This paper has the ambition to explore the genesis, the development and the issues tackled in the framework of the International Congresses of Education. Two perspectives will be followed: firstly, the question of actors (individuals or collectives) involved in promoting these congresses and constructing an international know-how. Secondly, the impact of the congresses resolutions on national school policies trough the analysis of the forms of norms diffusion, the coordination with the International Organizations and the nature of the influence that they exercise upon governments.

The research perspective of this paper is focused on the circulation of pedagogical ideas and models beyond national boundaries. It is located at the crossroads between the study of “régimes circulatoires” (Saunier, 2008) and the transnational history of International Organizations (Ariye, 2004). From a methodological point of view, the emphasis is put on a social history of individuals and collective actors who construct "internationalism" in the field of technical and professional education (Kott, 2008). This paper is the result of a crossing of sources from several archives: documents of International Organizations (ILO, IIIC) and publications, reports and private correspondence related to the BIET’s congresses.

The International Congresses of Technical Education organized by the BIET during the interwar period prominently enable the analysis of the emergence of a "global community". However, an expertise (theoretically) translated in international standards and norms lays its own foundation in the specific national contexts. Within the present historical debates, this paper on one hand gives prominence to the study of the articulations between national and international dimensions. On the other hand, this research outlines the supranational treatment of problems and solutions common to the Western Europe countries and the role of "transnationalism" as a variable having an impact on the definition of various forms of schooling.